Book Review: The Foundations of Buddhism

This is my little review of The Foundations of Buddhism, by Rupert Gethin. The author originally got my attention because of a paper mentioned in a previous post.

This is a pretty good "scholarly" book that touches on many things within the the huge degree of variation in Buddhism. Being a Theravada Buddhist I'm annoyed by the constant use of Sanskrit terms (Dharma vs. Dhamma) even when speaking in a Theravada context. Considering that most of the book is about "core" Buddhist beliefs, it seems like he should be using Pali terms rather than Sanskrit, but perhaps scholars who study all of this stuff have largely standardized on the Sanskrit or something.

Since I already have a fairly good understanding of Buddhist doctrine (the Theravada anyway) I mostly found the chapters on history, the evolution of Buddhist scriptures, Abhidhamma, and Mahayana to be interesting. I particularly wasn't aware of the variation in Abhidhamma between Northern, Southern, and Eastern branches of Buddhism. I think the author does a good job of contrasting differences within different Buddhist schools and this is where I learned the most from this book.

For example, the Bardo state which is made much of in Tibetan Buddhism comes from Sarvastavadin Abhidharma. Not exactly earth-shattering information, but interesting to know.

Page 100 contains a reference to politics titled "A note on the Sangha and the state" part of which I quote below:

Strictly speaking the Sangha is an autonomous organization and no provision is made with the Vinaya for formal links with the state or government. But this does not mean that in practice close links between the Sangha and the state have not developed. The history of Buddhism in all the regions of the world where it has taken root, from ancient times down to the present day, affords numerous examples of such links and associations.

He then mentions some stuff about king Asoka, but doesn't get into any really important details, unfortunately. He then continues:

Once a king has become involved in supporting the Sangha, the avenues are not only open for state interference in and control of the affairs of the Sangha but also for the Sangha to become involved in the affairs of the state and political intrigue. The state may seek to justify its actions—including war—in the name of support for the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha; it may seek to support the sections of the Sangha that it judges as representing the true Dharma; the Sangha may connive in this, with different factions appealing for state support.

He then mentions some stuff like the Mahavimsa, Tendai monks fighting in mideval Japan, and the role of Buddhism in the legitimization of power in Southeast Asia.

I am a bit disappointed that he mentions "no provision is made with the Vinaya for formal links with the state or government" but then leaves out any mention of the political nature of certain aspects of "wrong livelihood" for monks which is mentioned in the Vinaya. Not sure if he didn't know about that or if he just didn't mention it considering the limited space he decided to devote to the subject.

In any case, I originally got this book hoping to learn more about history and the conditions in the time of the Buddha. This book focuses more on Buddhism and the variations of different schools rather than the historical context of Buddhism. For that I guess I'll have to look for another book. (Any recommendations?)

By the way, I've set up a list of books on political buddhism on Google Books. You can subscribe to my tag via RSS if desired and you'll see any new books I add to the list as I add them. I also added an RSS feed page element to the left that will link to books as I add them, but unfortunately I can only get the page element to list the last 5 books I added.